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Thursday, October 2, 2008

Lucky breaks with tickets (1 of 3)

I can’t write enough about tickets, and it’s now been more than a year since I’ve received a moving violation! There have been some close calls of course and I still get a few parking tickets, but mostly, I’ve stayed clear of the thin yellow slip demanding we pay our due, or go to trial and then pay our due. Getting tickets is kind of reminiscent of getting scolded for running in the hallway as a child: it is inevitable. Neither now nor then could I prove my innocence, the system has no tolerance for back talk young man. But sometimes there are days when I win one, and those days will live forever in the depths of my jigsaw puzzle of a brain.

-Situation one:Once after dropping some one off at a LaGuardia Terminal, I unknowingly crossed a solid white line. A Port Authority Officer was waiting for me so I pulled to the shoulder and after he told me what I had done wrong, I acted as genuine and apologetic as I could, while trying to maintain confidence and clarity of voice. After I gave him my license, he told me he’d give me a break, a BREAK!? Can you imagine? He asked me if I might know where he could find a taxi that completely evaded the pull over and accelerated right past him. I told him about the 4 airport hold lots, “But when I leave the airport,” I said, “I just drive back to the city to avoid the waiting time.”

“So basically he could be anywhere-“ He asked, or ascertained.

I looked straight ahead, trying to hide my pride for the fugitive cabbie, then turned to the officer “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get him,” he said, as if somehow we were in this together. He then turned to the limousine behind me and signaled him for a pull over now that he’d finished with me.